Thursday, June 7, 2007

I Feel So Rejected!

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Awhile back my first ex-husband sent me an email telling me about a publisher that was taking submissions for a book that they would be compiling. He encouraged me to send in a story as he thought that I wrote well enough to have a shot at it and I figured "what the heck, why not?" I mean, how often does one's first ex-husband ever pay a compliment? Especially when it's unsolicited and not looking to garner anything in return!

I sent a short story in and then promptly forgot about it until this morning when I received the following email:

Dear Linda,At long last, A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers has been compiled.Unfortunately, your story was not among the 49 stories selected for publication in the book. However, I hope you take some comfort in knowing that it was among the 200 semifinalists, out of nearly 2,000 submissions, for this book.A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers will be available through most retail and online booksellers throughout North America in April 2008.Thank you for allowing us to consider your story. I wish you luck in publishing it elsewhere.Sincerely,Colleen SellCup of Comfort editorwordsinger@aol.com (direct)cupofcomfort@adamsmedia.com (via publisher)

Oh bother ... guess I shall have to settle for being published in the Letters to the Editor section of the local newspaper until I get around to submitting something else for rejection publication!

I agree with Kai!! You ARE a fine writer/author in your own right! Haven't you been paying attention to the loads of comments you get EVERY single day that you post? People LOVE ya, Linda! Folks you know & don't know read you as an integral part of their day! Your gift is to be shared, and you need to keep at it! Someday we'll find your work being sold @ Borders, and Barnes & Noble!

Don't feel bad! There are more other chances!!! Successful people do not always succeed on the first try. Even Thomas Edison tried 10,000 filaments before he found the best one for his lamp and he didn't call it failures. He called it prototype. It's good enough that you did your best. You should be proud of your work.

drat! you should have been in that book! send it to someone else, that chicken soup idea i read above sounds good! the top 10 percent is wonderful and i have one more idea. of course knowing nothing about publishing i don't know if this is any good or not. what about contacting them again and asking what could be improved to make it accepted next time? just a thought.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful words of support and encouragement! I probably should have mentioned somewhere in this post that I'm not really all that upset about not being chosen for publication and I was somewhat impressed that I had managed to be in the top 200.

To be honest, even though it's something I would love to see happen someday, I've never seriously gone after having something published in a book or magazine. I guess I figure I don't write well enough for something like that but it was worth a shot to submit a story and actually kind of fun to get a rejection email. I am sure that some of the best writers in the world have a lovely collection of rejection letters!

However, you folks have made some excellent suggestions so perhaps I shall pursue some of them at some point. For now, I am thankful for and appreciative of the "audience" I have right here in my little part of the Blogosphere. You guys are the best and I've got no doubt that you wouldn't pull any punches about my writing abilities or disabilities as the case may be!

Would you please please please consider sending it in to the different places named about. Even if it does get rejected. It would still be cool to have letters from big places. Just looking for the bright side of the paper. Have a great day off girl friend.

I'm proud of you too, Linda. That's a kinder and more personal rejection notice that lots of people get. That's a great sign. And being selected as a top 200 entry out of 2000 is fantastic. Keep trying, Linda. Your odds only improve...and I know as much from experience.

I know how frustrating it is to be rejected by publishers. I was rejected by Adams Media and Chicken Soup for years. I've even had stories selected by both publishers and then didn't make the final cut. That hurt a lot.

I looked my stories over and I noticed something missing -- the emotional element. I started out as a journalist and learned to keep myself out of whatever I wrote. It was about the facts and the story, not about me. With books like Cup of Comfort and Chicken Soup it's about very personal emotion.

Look over your story. Can you rewrite it or rework it? Is there something missing? Fix it and send it out again. Bylines magazine runs an annual memoir contest. Check it out. Writer's Digest has a memoir category in their annual contest. Chicken Soup and Cup of Comfort are always looking for stories. Send it out again and keep writing more and more. Eventually, you'll get through. I did.

In 2008 my stories appeared in two Chicken Soup books and four Cup of Comfort books, including A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers. It takes time and hard work and persistence, but you'll get there.